Newest Features & Reviews

Norway’s Hegel Music Systems makes CD players, DACs, and amplifiers -- integrated, pre-, and power -- and since its founding has focused on solving the problems that plague contemporary amplifiers, such as harmonic distortion. In fact, harmonic distortion so intrigued founder Bent Holter that, in the late 1980s, he wrote his thesis on the subject. Among the technologies to come from this research has been Hegel’s patented SoundEngine circuitry -- now reincarnated as SoundEngine2 -- which seeks to retain the original detail and dynamic range of the signal with error-correction technology. The various stages of an amplifier -- input, gain, output -- are usually connected in series. The trouble with this is that any distortion produced in one of these stages is then sent on to the next stage to be amplified, along with the signal. At the end of this series, this cumulative distortion is then, hopefully, minimized by a global feedback loop.

James Hunter made some albums and EPs as Howlin’ Wilf in the late 1980s before making . . . believe what I say, his first recording under his own name, in 1996. Whatever It Takes is his seventh album with the James Hunter Six, and his second for Daptone Records, a label founded to handle just such a devoted carrier of the soul-music torch. The English singer has a natural feel for the music, and sings it in the sophisticated manner of a Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye. He’s also a formidable guitarist and bandleader whose sextet plays his songs with understated skill.

A few months ago, I wrote about my plan to review several pairs of speakers that retailed at or below $2500 USD per pair, and as of February 1, 2018, I’d finished my roundup. Over the last six months, I’ve spent time with Bowers & Wilkins’s 704 S2 ($2500), Elac’s Uni-Fi Slim FS U5 ($1499.99), KEF’s Q750 ($1499.98), and Monitor Audio’s Silver 300 ($2000) (all prices per pair). My goal was to get a solid feel for what buyers can expect in this price range, in terms of sound quality, appearance, and fit’n’finish. If you want to go deeper into what informs my thoughts as expressed below, I suggest checking out each of those reviews.

I’ve become well acquainted with Monitor Audio in the past few years, having visited their offices in Rayleigh, just east of London in the UK, in 2014. I reviewed their Bronze 6 loudspeaker in 2016, and recently I used as my reference loudspeaker the flagship model of their previous generation of Silver models, the Silver 10 floorstander. I respect Monitor’s no-nonsense approach to loudspeaker design: not much pomp and circumstance, just sound engineering and modestly attractive looks.

Organist Dr. Lonnie Smith returned to Blue Note Records in 2016 with Evolution, an entertaining and intelligent slice of soul jazz that was one of my favorite discs of that year. He’s back again on Blue Note, and this time producer Don Was recorded him live with his trio at the Jazz Standard, in New York. The show was a celebration of Smith’s 75th birthday, and this seven-song set illustrates the organist’s versatility and the timelessness -- the freshness, even -- of the kind of music he’s been playing for so long.

Monolith THX Ultra 15” subwoofer measurements can be found by clicking this link.

The Monolith THX Ultra 15” subwoofer (product no. 24458) is a radically different product for Monoprice. As I’ve written previously on SoundStage! Xperience, Monoprice’s business model is to sell products that are pretty good, yet are more affordable than those of most competitors.

Of all the many phases of Bob Dylan’s career, his turn to charismatic Christianity in the late 1970s was the most puzzling and controversial, to fans and music critics alike. Dave Marsh, in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983), wrote of Slow Train Coming (1979), the first album professing Dylan’s new faith, that the singer-songwriter “seemed to be using religion to front some new found right-wing political views.”

Hi, I’m Hans. I’m a youngish, married dude with no kids. In my spare time I read the news, pore over online car forums, trawl the Internet for politically incorrect memes, play and watch an unhealthy amount of soccer, and overanalyze all manner of past choices I’ve made. When I meet new people, I may talk about any of these activities, or my hometown Eagles going to the Super Bowl, or just about anything that will keep the exchange going. Hell, just to throw my fellow conversationalist for a loop, I may dig deep into my past and talk about how I used to work in a call center, an Abercrombie & Fitch, a funeral home. What I almost certainly won’t do is mention my second job: reviewing hi-fi gear for the SoundStage! Network.

I’ve owned or reviewed half a dozen KEF products over the past five years, and with good reason. KEF makes sensible, high-quality, well-engineered loudspeakers. But for all my experience with this British brand, I’d never heard any of their affordable Q speaker models.

Chris Stapleton has written six No.1 hits for other singers, and more than 150 of his songs have appeared on albums by musicians as diverse as Adele, George Strait, and Tim McGraw. Stapleton is no Music City hack but a skilled singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose knowledge and command of Southern music idioms runs deep. Last year’s From a Room: Volume 1 owed as much to Gregg Allman as to George Jones, and was well played and refreshingly unslick. The Country Music Association awarded it Album of the Year.